Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 24, 2024 in National Harbor, Maryland. Trump said Thursday he would debate Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Thursday he has agreed to debate Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, a reversal from his position last week that he would not participate in the ABC News event.
During a press conference at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, the former president said he had also agreed to debates on Sept. 4 and Sept. 25.
The first debate would be hosted by Fox News, he said.
He initially misspoke and said the Sept. 10 debate would be on NBC, with ABC hosting the debate on Sept. 25. His campaign later clarified the ABC News debate would be Sept. 10, the date Trump and President Joe Biden agreed to with ABC before Biden dropped out of the race, with NBC hosting the final debate.
ABC News confirmed that Trump and the Harris campaign have agreed to the network’s debate.
“I think it’s very important to have debates,” Trump said.
He then quickly moved on to disparaging Harris.
The Harris campaign, Fox News and NBC did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for comment.
In a press release, the Harris campaign called Trump’s press conference a “public meltdown,” but did not mention if Harris would participate in the Fox News or NBC debate.
Peaceful transfer of power
During Thursday’s press conference,? a reporter asked if there would be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump lost the election.
“Of course, there’ll be a peaceful transfer and there was last time and there’ll be a peaceful transfer,” Trump said. “I just hope we’re going to have honest elections.”
The 2021 transfer from the Trump to Biden presidencies was among the most chaotic and violent in the country’s history.
On Jan. 6, 2021, a group of pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election results. Congress impeached Trump for a second time due to his role in inciting the insurrection.
In September of 2020, Trump didn’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost that election.?
Trump said that the hundreds of people the U.S. Justice Department has charged and convicted in their role in the Jan. 6 attack, were not being treated fairly.
“Nobody was killed on January 6,” Trump said, which is not true. “I think that the people of January 6 were treated very unfairly.”
Two police officers, Howard Liebengood of the U.S. Capitol Police and Jeffrey Smith of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, died by suicide after Jan. 6 that were ruled a line of duty death. A woman, Ashli Babbitt, was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer as she tried to breach the Speaker’s Lobby adjacent to the U.S. House floor.?
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Ariana Figueroa
Ariana covers the nation's capital for States Newsroom. Her areas of coverage include politics and policy, lobbying, elections and campaign finance.
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
